Hannah Rae Kerner is chair of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS), executive director of the Space Frontier Foundation, and a Ph.D. student at Arizona State University studying machine learning applications for astrophysics and robotic control. She contributed this article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights . Recently, my dad and […]
Earth’s natural light show — the auroras — flared into high gear Monday (Sep. 7), creating a breathtaking display that astronaut Scott Kelly said was like no other aurora he’d ever seen. Bright-green rivers of light and a deep-crimson haze decorated Earth’s atmosphere during the Labor Day light show. From his vantage point on the […]
International Space Station crew members, including Scott Kelly, Mikhail Kornienko, Gennady Padalka, Oleg Kononenko, Sergei Volkov, Kjell Lindgren, Kimiya Yui, Andreas Mogensen and Aidyn Aimbetov, talk with reporters on Sept. 8, 2015.Credit: NASA TV HOUSTON — If Scott Kelly were on a spaceship heading out to Mars — rather than on board the International Space Station, […]
On Sept. 7th, 2015, European astronaut Andreas Mogensen – orbiting 240+ miles up and flying at 17,000+ mph – placed a peg in a hole on Earth; a demonstration of teleoperation using a force-feedback controlled machine system built by ESA. Credit: ESA To source
This summer, researchers tested two “hedgehog” robot prototypes, to get an idea of the machines’ potential to explore space locations inaccessible to conventional rovers. Wheeled robots like the car-size Mars rover Curiosity work well on planetary surfaces, but in the low-gravity environment of a comet or an asteroid, such machines would be in danger of […]
A World View Enterprises balloon about to lift off from southeastern Arizona on March 8, 2015, on the company’s first commercial flight.Credit: World View Enterprises The cost of sending a scientific experiment to the stratosphere aboard a balloon just went down. Arizona-based World View Enterprises announced today (Sept. 8) that it’s introducing a cost-sharing system […]
Astrophotographer Jeff Dai sent in a photo of Venus and Jupiter over Lake Namtso, Tibet, caught on July 15, 2015. Venus will be extremely bright in the morning sky during September and October.Credit: Jeff Dai If you see a bright light just above the horizon at sunrise, don’t panic! It’s not a UFO — it’s […]
This composite photo made from five images shows the International Space Station crossing the sun’s face on Sept. 6, 2015. The images were captured from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls An amazing new photo shows the International Space Station crossing the sun’s face. The picture, a composite of five images taken Sunday (Sept. […]
Small bodies have low gravity, presenting a challenge for exploration. Rovers can’t roll without traction. Stanford University and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are developing two robotic ‘cubes with spikes’ that can operate in any position, sampling and sensing through their little lances. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech To source
Scott Kelly, ISS CDR., captured these geomagnetic storm signatures on September 7th, 2015, tweeting: “My gift to you on #LaborDay, #USA. Enjoy! #YearInSpace.” The Orion constellation and the Pleiades star cluster can be see ‘rising’ from the ISS point of view. Credit: NASA/@StationCDRKelly/Mash Mix by Space.com’s @SteveSpaleta To source
The moon will pass into Earth’s shadow producing a total lunar eclipse during the “Supermoon” – a time when the full moon occurs “at or near its closest approach to Earth in a given orbit,” according to NASA. Because this full moon happens on the night of the autumnal equinox (9-27-2015), it is also known […]
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This remastered view of the Jupiter moon Europa is based on information from NASA’s Galileo mission of the 1990s.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute NASA’s upcoming mission to Europa may actually touch down on the potentially life-harboring Jupiter moon. While the main thrust of the Europa mission, which NASA aims to launch by the mid-2020s, involves characterizing the […]